On Oct. 21, 1508, Shah Isma'il I, founder of
the Shi'ite Safavid dynasty in Iran, entered Baghdad
at the head of his Kizilbash Turkmen troops,
driving out the Purnak governor. Turning the
city over to his chief of staff, he moved south against the Musha'sha'.
As in the Turkmen period, tribal centrifugalism
continued to dominate the politics of the region.

In Upper Iraq, parts of Diyar Bakr--including
Mosul and the Kurdish regions
east of the Tigris--came under Ottoman control
after the Safavids under Isma'il were
defeated by Sultan Selim I at Chaldiran
in 1514. Arabian Iraq, however, remained in Safavid
hands, and the Mawsillu chieftains, formerly
confederates of the Ak Koyunlu, now in the
service of the Safavids, rose to power in Baghdad
between 1514 and 1529. One of them, Dhu'l-Faqar,
or "Nukhud Sultan," in fact declared
himself independent of the Safavids. The young Shah
Tahmasp I, the son of Isma'il, retook Baghdad
in 1529 and gave it to Muhammad Sultan Khan Takkalu.

In 1533 Selim's son, the Ottoman
sultan Süleyman I (also known as Süleyman the
Magnificent), set out on his campaign against "the Two
Iraqs." On Nov. 18, 1534, he took Baghdad
from the Safavid governor Muhammad
Sultan Khan. The city was then integrated into the Ottoman
Turkish empire, except for a brief Safavid
reoccupation from 1623 to 1638. Lower Iraq, too, was incorporated
into the empire by the middle of the 16th century. As a result of
the Ottoman conquest, Iraq underwent complete
geopolitical reorientation westward.